“I’m not going to be last this time!”
The frail and delicate girl in the girls’ group shook her head nervously, fear evident in her voice.
“I’ll be last this time!” Xie Zhuran bravely stepped forward.
The delicate girl looked at him like he was a savior, stunned for a moment before lowering her head and shyly saying thank you.
Though her thanks was as quiet as a mosquito’s whine, Xie Zhuran heard every word clearly.
The three roommates, seeing Xie Zhuran already starting to feel awkward, all simultaneously glimpsed an unpleasant future ahead.
Tsk, what a simp—look at you all awkward now.
“I’ll be at the very front then!”
Song Qiuyu patted her chest confidently and took the first step out.
Jiang Xiao followed quietly behind her.
At that moment, the man’s strange voice sounded again: “A match made in heaven… up ahead.”
Jiang Xiao couldn’t help but glance at the person in front of him. He pondered for a moment before raising both hands and gently placing them on her shoulders, just as he had done at the start.
He didn’t dare get his body too close.
The eight of them walked neatly down the slightly narrow corridor.
Not long after they stepped out, the wooden door of the wedding room slammed shut behind them.
The lights went out.
Their world was plunged into complete darkness.
Song Qiuyu, at the front, crossed her arms and kept alert to her surroundings while imagining all the classic scenes from horror movies in her mind.
The scarier the scenes she pictured, the less scared she was of the NPCs.
Her expression was as steady as Mount Tai, and Jiang Xiao behind her was just as calm.
The others farther back were increasingly tense; they peeked and tiptoed, practically wanting to stick themselves to the person in front of them to avoid getting separated…
Or, if they got caught, they could at least drag someone along.
Suddenly, the paper windows next to them were pierced without warning.
A pair of bloodstained pale hands reached out toward them!
The arms flailed wildly like mad, accompanied by ghostly wails, moving with no order at all.
“Ahhh—!”
The girls screamed, the boys howled, and everyone ran forward blindly in the darkness.
Gradually, they forgot about the distance between them.
Everyone clung together in a group.
Held tightly from behind by Jiang Xiao, Song Qiuyu’s heart pounded wildly.
She didn’t think much—just assumed it was fear.
She couldn’t help but feel grateful that the person behind her was Jiang Xiao; if it had been anyone else, she would have felt even more uneasy.
Her neck and above quickly flushed red; despite the November night, she felt like she was in the middle of a scorching summer noon.
A burning heat rose inside her, stirring her nerves.
She took a deep breath of the cold air and led everyone onward, running without pause.
Dragging along the group, Song Qiuyu had never run so heavily before.
After the chaotic rush, they passed the paper windows but suddenly faced a large red flower sedan charging straight at them.
Everyone immediately stopped, leaning backward in shock.
Behind them were still the wildly grasping ghost hands; in front, the flower sedan—a pincer attack.
At this critical moment, the red flower sedan turned the corner.
Just as Song Qiuyu was about to relax, a pale hand shot out from the sedan and grabbed her collar.
Song Qiuyu froze.
In an instant, before anyone could react, she was pulled into the flower sedan.
“Song Qiuyu!”
Jiang Xiao reacted the fastest, trying to grab the flowing curtains of the sedan and rush in himself.
But the sedan suddenly sped up, and his hand came up empty.
“Lao Song!”
“Song, wait!”
The red flower sedan disappeared, leaving them no chance to pursue.
“What do we do now? Lao Song’s been taken!”
Xie Zhuran stared in the direction the sedan vanished, his voice urgent.
“Don’t panic. Let’s keep moving forward. There should be clues ahead.” Jiang Xiao clenched his fists tightly, still feeling the warmth of Song Qiuyu’s shoulders in his palms.
So it went from Song Qiuyu dragging the group along to Jiang Xiao doing so, but it wasn’t long before a lit room suddenly appeared before them.
Jiang Xiao pushed open the door.
Inside, six chairs were placed on each side, with two at the head of the table.
Most importantly, on the table stood two tablets.
Everyone entered the room.
But as soon as they did, the door slammed shut behind them on its own.
Jiang Xiao kept his composure and began searching for clues.
Before long, he found two booklets and, combining the information, deduced the bride’s identity and fate in the wedding room.
Though it was said to be a ritual to bring joy, more accurately, it was a Yin Marriage—the bride was a sacrifice.
But this information wasn’t enough.
Lin An noticed something strange about the couplets on the room’s four pillars.
He immediately went over to analyze further.
In the end, he drew a conclusion.
“So, Song Qiuyu was taken to stand in as the bride for the Yin Marriage?” Sang Tian said, shocked.
“And now one of us needs to be a hero, going alone to find the bride and retrieve her embroidered shoes.”
Lin An narrowed his eyes. “But the bride is most likely already replaced by Qiuyu herself. In other words, we might be able to rescue her at the same time!”
“Mm.”
Jiang Xiao nodded softly.
“I’ll go.”
At these words, everyone else was stunned.
The person going had to retrace their steps, walk back the path they had just taken.
Xie Zhuran and Lin An silently gave Jiang Xiao a thumbs-up, admiring his manliness, then sat down in the two seats on the left.
The girls’ group all took their seats as well.
“Song Qiuyu, we’re counting on you!”
Sang Tian said with the expression of a mother entrusting her daughter to her future husband.
After the friends and family settled in, Jiang Xiao stepped forward, easily pulling open the wooden door again and walking alone back along the same path.
He quickened his pace, refusing to linger near the ghostly hands even for a second.
When he arrived at the wedding room—the door now open but the light dim—he took a deep breath before entering.
The wedding bed was empty.
But from behind the screen came the faint sound of fabric rustling, as if someone was changing clothes.
On the table lay half a sheet of paper.
Jiang Xiao glanced at the writing on it and immediately understood.
Song Qiuyu’s capture also came with her own single-player quest.
The prerequisite for this quest was to wear the Ghost Bride’s bridal dress…
Thinking this through, Jiang Xiao pondered for a moment, then quietly and lightly approached the screen.
He held his breath and stopped at its edge, clenching his fists as inner conflict raged, then tilted his head slightly.
In his sight, Song Qiuyu was fumbling awkwardly in the dim light, changing clothes.
There were no cameras here, as a full-body change was required to ensure the player’s privacy…
The fluttering red bridal dress revealed vast patches of snow-white skin.
At the high point, a small heart-shaped mark stood out conspicuously.
But even more eye-catching than that was something else.
Jiang Xiao’s pupils constricted sharply.